I'm in the process of writing a story with a few subplots going on, one involves a police detective investigating a missing child. His connection to the
whole story is that his own child was kidnapped in public when he wasn't looking and murdered and his wife left him shortly after the tragedy and remarried
another man. The cop and his ex-wife have another child together but she doesn't trust him to be alone with the kid and so while he investigates the
current case, he's dealing with his personal problems, which are being focused on more than the case of the missing child. I only started it and am
wondering if I even have any of this stuff right because 1: I don't know too much about how certain police procedures go and 2: am definitely unsure of how
the Church works.
So for the police procedures, I'm wondering
Most of the time, a person can't be legally declared missing until a certain amount of hours(I think 48) but is this different if the missing person is a child?
If a cop doesn't find anything after his first search in the home(to make sure there wasn't a body in the basement) and can't find anything, would he give the parents a card and say 'we'll keep in touch'
As for a church's procedures:
One of the characters is a convicted sexual predator who served his years and is released and knows his wrongdoings now and knows he can't fix them, but wants to escape his past and start a new life under the guidance of God. But no matter how hard he tries, thanks to this missing child case, he's caught in the cross hairs of suspicion.
What would a person have to do to start becoming a member of the church? Would they have to confess their sins first if they have any, and what would a priest usually say in a confessional(ie calling him 'son' and so forth) Or would there be other things he would have to do before he can confess? Like get baptized, etc. Maybe ashamed of what he did in the past, he doesn't want to confess just yet.
anything you have for suggestions and answers would be greatly appreciated.
So for the police procedures, I'm wondering
Most of the time, a person can't be legally declared missing until a certain amount of hours(I think 48) but is this different if the missing person is a child?
If a cop doesn't find anything after his first search in the home(to make sure there wasn't a body in the basement) and can't find anything, would he give the parents a card and say 'we'll keep in touch'
As for a church's procedures:
One of the characters is a convicted sexual predator who served his years and is released and knows his wrongdoings now and knows he can't fix them, but wants to escape his past and start a new life under the guidance of God. But no matter how hard he tries, thanks to this missing child case, he's caught in the cross hairs of suspicion.
What would a person have to do to start becoming a member of the church? Would they have to confess their sins first if they have any, and what would a priest usually say in a confessional(ie calling him 'son' and so forth) Or would there be other things he would have to do before he can confess? Like get baptized, etc. Maybe ashamed of what he did in the past, he doesn't want to confess just yet.
anything you have for suggestions and answers would be greatly appreciated.
